From The Space Age to the Age of Aquarius...

The events that occurred in the house of my youth seriously challenged my fundamental understanding of the physical world and forced me to reconsider my worldview and what I thought about the very nature of existence and our consensus reality.

My family moved to the suburbs of Detroit Michigan in the late 1970s. The home was a very modern four-bedroom house with built-in appliances and modern conveniences. It would be the least likely place that one would expect to experience paranormal activity. It wasn’t too long after settling in that we noticed strange occurrences in the home. I believe that I was one of the first to experience something strange. One day I was home alone, and I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the main hallway. I knew for a fact that I was the only one in the house, so I got up to investigate. As I reached the main hallway, I heard footsteps coming from the den. I gathered my courage to round the door to confront the “intruder” As I rounded the corner, I was shocked and relieved to see that there was no one in the room, but on the other side of the glass door wall I could see the silhouette of a dark figure through the daylight of the sheer curtains. My mind raced through the adrenalin and I thought, “...just how the Hell did he get through that glass door and get outside so quickly!” I didn’t hear the door slide, and it was physically impossible for a person to open that sliding door, step out without disturbing the curtains, and close it behind himself in the time it took me to enter the room!

As I drew closer to the door, I could see the figure slowly drift to the right and eventually out of my direct line of sight. As I reached the sliding glass door, I peered through the sheer drapes to see the figure... I was afraid to pull the sheer curtain aside, so I observed the figure assuming that it did not know I was observing it. The full impact of what I was watching hadn’t fully sunken it. Looking back its motion was like that of an NPC (as seen in modern video games), it was moving side to side, with its arms swaying gently. It looked strange and unnatural in the full day light. It continued moving to the right and eventually out of view. I raced to an adjacent window to get a better look, but it had disappeared. Also, perplexing was the fact that one had to stepdown from the door wall onto the patio, meaning for me to see it as I did, it had to have been floating for me to be able to see it. As I stated previously, this was the first of many occurrences. One of the most dramatic encounters is directly related to the subject of this essay. One day my mother and I were home alone.

I was in my room studying when I heard my mother scream from her bedroom. I raced in and stopped in my tracks because of what I saw. In the opposite corner of the room, I saw my mother and standing centimeters next to her was the figure I described earlier. In this setting it appeared about 152 cm tall, dressed in what appeared to be a black suit with a closed tunic or suit jacket. It was an unnatural black, similar to what I imagine Vanta Black would look like. Where its head and hands would be there was a shimmering field or area of translucent distortion. After a moment of staring directly at it, the figure curtly pivoted and began walking away from my mother. It entered an adjacent door leading to the half bath of my parent’s room and I rushed in after to get a better look. Another observation regarding its movement. I have not heard or seen anything like it since. As it moved, I heard and felt It as from within my body. As its “legs” moved I heard a swish-swish sound coming from inside my head! It was akin to the sound that corduroy trousers make, but it was much more electro-mechanical and like one would imagine the sound that magnetic field lines were being crossed or broken would be...

As I entered the bathroom, I stood directly in front of this entity. Its “suit” did not appear to be a suit at all; it was almost like a “projection” of some sort. I had the sense that it was higher dimensional and I was only seeing that part which was intersecting our three-dimensional space. I tried to focus on where a face would be, but I could not discern any facial features whatsoever. The space where the face should be was an area of shimmering, ever-shifting distortion. It was not totally opaque, I could just barely see though it to the wall of the bathroom. We stood there for a few moments, perhaps marveling at each other and the thought of trying to pass my hand through it crossed my mind. Whether through telepathy from the entity, my inner voice, common sense, or just plain cowardice I did not try to touch it. In this proximity I could hear/feel a basso hum as if there were a source of tremendous energy of some kind sustaining the phenomena. My reluctance to physically interact with what I was observing haunts me to this day. (no pun intended). 

In any case, after about fifteen second or so, a bright flash happened, I could feel the heat energy of this event on my face and body. It was akin to, but not exactly like the “beam out” effect as seen in the Star Trek, original series. Rather than the slow shimmering effect of the television show, I observed a flash followed by a very well ordered and striking geometric pattern! Afterwards, and for many years, I tried to draw and sketch the pattern from my mind’s eye, but I could never get it quite right! I drew kaleidoscopic designs and variations on that theme; unfortunately, I simply could not duplicate it! It was not until the mid-80s, when I was taking an engineering physics course, did I see an image in my textbook that was the exact pattern that I saw all those years ago! It blew my mind! The image was of a diffraction pattern from a recently discovered quasi-crystal.

See Figure 1 below. For many years after I mused over this “coincidence” but didn’t really pursue the anomaly any further.